Student difficulty solving quadratic equation in high school

a quantitative research

Abstract

The paper aimed to discuss the difficulties students in resolving quadratic in the Basic Education. To accomplish of the quantitative research, two data collection instruments were applied in the year 2017 to 100 students of the 1st year of High School, in a public school, in the city of Barcarena, in Belém-PA. Only six questions of data collection were selected to analyze the answers, based on the statistical method and data organization by means of graphs of sectors and relative frequencies. The results of this research indicate that students have difficulties in interpreting algebraic problems, but also those that showed in the form of texts and which are modeled by ax ² + bx + c = 0. In this training law, its coefficients are real numbers, and the value of the coefficient “a” is nonzero. This result indicates that students little remember about this subject of Middle School. Besides, students have difficulty resolving the quadratic equation by the General Formula. The result suggests that mathematics teachers should diversify more the choice of teaching strategies for quadratic equation, aiming to ensure the learning of algebraic calculations.